certain
_apaisement_, when the author had finally settled at her country-house
of Nohant in Berry, turns to studies of rural life: _La Petite Fadette_,
_Francois le Champi_, _La Mare au Diable_, etc. The last is represented
by novels of no one particular, or at least single, scope or bent, _Les
Beaux Messieurs de Bois-Dore_, _Le Marquis de Villemer_, _Mademoiselle
La Quintinie,_ etc., reaching to _Flamarande_ and its sequel shortly
before her death. The thing, as has been hinted already, is one of those
first rough sketches of the ground which, if not too closely adhered to,
are often useful. As a matter of fact, the divisions often--as one might
be sure they would--run cross. There is a lot of occult or semi-occult
stuff in _Lelia_, and the "period of appeasement" did not show much
reconciliation and forgiveness of injury in _Elle et Lui_, whether we
take this as by the injured or as by her who had done the wrong. But if
we take the two first novels briefly and _Lelia_ itself more fully for
Period I.; _Consuelo_ and its sequel (_Spiridion_ has been "done and
done thoroughly"[178] by Thackeray in the _Paris Sketch-book_) for II.;
the three above-mentioned _berquinades_ for the Third, with _Lucrezia
Floriani_ thrown between as an all-important outsider, and _Les Beaux
Messieurs de Bois-Dore_ for IV., giving each some detailed criticism,
with a few remarks on others, it ought to suffice as a fairly solid
groundwork for a general summing-up.

[Sidenote: _Indiana_.]

To understand the _furore_ with which _Indiana_ and _Valentine_ were
received, one must remember the time and the circumstance with even more
care than is usually desirable. They were--if not quite so well written
as they seemed even to Thackeray--written very well; they expressed the
full outburst of the French _Sturm und Drang_ movement; there was
nothing like them either in French or in any other literature, though
Bulwer was beginning similar things with us. Essentially, and when taken
_sub specie aeternitatis_, they are very nearly rubbish. The frail
(extremely frail) and gentle Indiana, with her terrible husband, whose
crimes against her and nature even reach the abominable pitch of
declaring himself ready to shoot expected poachers and possible
burglars; her creole maid and foster-sister "Noun," who disguises
herself in Indiana's garments and occupies her room, receives there a
lover who is afterwards her mistress's, but soon commits suicide; the
lover